POETRY (dir. Chang-dong Lee) POETRY is a slow-moving character drama which is disarmingly powerful, yet haunting and meditative. Mija is a sixty-six year old suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease who lives in a rural Korean town with her indolent teen aged grandson, Jongwook. In an attempt to stimulate her cognitive abilities, she enrolls in a poetry class. Things are looking up until she learns that her grandson was involved in the suicide of one of his classmates. Jongwook and some of his friends had been sexually abusing a classmate, and this drove the young girl to take her life. Soon Mija is contacted by the fathers of the boys and learns that they want to pay the girl's mother a large sum of money to keep her from going to the authorities. In her poetry class at the community center Mija learns that in order to create poetry one must learn, 'to observe', 'to notice', and 'to witness'. The need for a heightened awareness or sensibility becomes the compelling dichotomy of the film. We observe that the fathers only focus on the ramifications of the incident on the lives of their sons, while Mija becomes moved and deeply empathizes with the loss of this innocent young girl to her family and the community. And, in the end Mija forces her grandson to face up to his responsibility, and she also constructs a loving and heartfelt poetic eulogy for the young girl. And, in a remarkable way of relating these two crucial events, the character of Mija is not even present as the actions unfold. Director, Chang-dong Lee, delivers a wonderful film which touches on a wide range of difficult subjects; poetry, dementia, sexual abuse and suicide, and casts an elderly semi-retired Korean actress as the star of the film. However, these kinds of mature topics and deliberate presentation are out of favor in Hollywood and unpopular with contemporary film audiences. I'm afraid that this film will never garner much commercial success, but if you take the time 'to witness', you will enjoy a truly rewarding cinematic experience.

Poetry (2010)

Steady and stealthy, this film proposes to be as lyrical and compact as a poem, but then it keeps going and ends up larger and more impressive than you'd expect. And the acting by leading female actress, the Korean star Jeong-hie Yun, is startling and nuanced, a great performance.

At the heart of the plot are two plots. The first is the title line—elderly Mija has decided to learn how to write poetry, so she attends a class (filled with younger students). The second is about a sex crime—a gang rape it turns out—by her grandson, who she is raising alone. The two are nearly opposites in so many ways we see how life itself balances the beautiful and ugly, and responsibility and indifference. In a larger way, "Poetry" is about contemporary life in Korea, and the interactions of ordinary people in extreme situations will be revealing to many outside of Korea.

It's hard to overstate how well this movie pulls off something socially serious and yet makes it all understated and almost matter of fact. There are these several lines of thought that keep going throughout, and that don't quite converge until the very end, which is both tragic (truly) and a bit mysterious. What exactly is the implication of that last scene on the bridge, and the water that shows nothing? It hearkens to the beginning, of course, but we have our main character at hand.

In that sense, it's a brilliant, almost perfect evocation of contemporary Korea on the most normal, middle class level. Lovely and loving, and cold and brutal. And it shows the glib sexism of the men there, much like everywhere at various times. And how to survive you sometimes have to just proceed. And then, of course, sometimes you do not survive.

As this film opens we see a group of children playing by a river; then the body of a young girl floats into view... one could be excused for expecting a mystery at this point but that isn't what this film is about. We soon learn that the girl is named Agnes and she drowned herself; her dairy made it clear that the reason she killed her self is that she had been repeatedly raped by six boys at her school... the film follows the story of one of the boy's grandmothers; sixty six year old Mija who is suffering the early stage of Alzheimer's. Before we learn of her grandson, Wook's, involvement Mija learns that a girl in his year has killed herself; he appears indifferent and claims not to have known her. It is only later when the father of one of the other boys tells her crime that we learn what happened; there is no mystery as to whether it did happen as the boys all admit it. The only question is what will happen next; the school doesn't want the negative publicity and the other boy's fathers want to protect their children's futures; to this end they propose paying Agnes mother five million Won (~US$4.400) each so that she won't press charges. Mija doesn't have that sort of money but finds herself pressured to get it.

While this is going on she has started attending a poetry class and even though she can't find inspiration herself she also attends local poetry readings. She starts noting down her thoughts on little things such as the taste of a fallen apricot or the colours of some flowers; all the while though she can't stop thinking about Agnes and ultimately she provides the inspiration for her poem.

This film is quite different from any other I can think of; we are often shown crimes from the viewpoint of the police, the victim's family and even the criminal but here it is from the viewpoint of a perpetrator's grandmother; a good woman who clearly doesn't know what she should do; her grandson is clearly unpleasant but from what the father's say his victim's mother needs the money more than she needs to see the guilty jailed. Jeong-hie Yun is a delight as Mija; it was refreshing to see a woman her age in the leading role. Director Chang-dong Lee takes things slowly, which might put off some viewers, I found it just served to draw me into the story more thoroughly. Not speaking Korean I can't comment of the beauty of the poetry, a subtitled translation can't be a substitute; however I can comment on the visual beauty of those scenes where Mija left her town and headed out into the countryside where Agnes lived and died; it was beautiful without being overly dramatic. There is ugliness too of course; we have to wonder how the school and the fathers could countenance such a crime. This might not be a typical film but I'd certainly recommend seeing it if you get the chance.